How To Get A Free Gin And Tonic If Your Train Is Late This Friday

Trains, eh? They're crazy expensive, and there's usually someone smashing down a box of smelly, greasy chicken, or there's a baby crying, or you encounter some random bloke who insists that he knows you from somewhere.

That's if you even get onto it in the first place. Train delays are pretty regular occurrences for anyone who has to travel on the rails a lot. And when delay strikes, your options are to go for a drink and sit there scrolling through social media on your phone, or just get angry and rant about it all on the internet.

Or you could combine the two. This Friday, when you inevitably find yourself sitting on the platform wondering why your weekend is being eaten into by one of the UK's many useless rail companies, remember this piece of advice: fight back!

Get a Free G&T this Friday. Credit: PA

Tweet your frustration using the hashtag #YayDelay and you could get a free Gin and Tonic or 50% off, depending on where you are.

The #YayDelay service uses an algorithm to check train delays and tweets about it (using the hashtag) to decide whether station users can get a voucher online (www.yaydelay.com) for either a free G&T or money off.

The service will only be in Waterloo station this Friday (2 February) between 5pm and 6pm but they plan to expand it out to other stations around the UK. If you want the offer to come to your station you can tweet the hashtag and ask them to come along.

The vouchers will be redeemable at The Beer House, the pub inside Waterloo station and will only be available on a Gordon's Gin and Tonic.

Between 2016 and 2017 UK passengers waited for more than 3.6 million hours for trains, according to Which?, and with fare increases already making a train journey more expensive than a mortgage, as well as further strikes planned, this number could get bigger in the year 2017/18.

Most of these hours spent waiting were on the Virgin East Coast and West Coast lines travelling to and from London. Given that a ticket for one of these journeys can cost more than a holiday to somewhere decidedly more exciting it's pretty shocking reading.

The UK's train system is far removed from that in Japan, where train passengers can get an apology and a note for their employer if their train is only 20 seconds late. Bloody hell.

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is a freelance journalist and LADbible contributor. He graduated from University of London with a BA in Philosophy before studying for a Masters in Journalism at the University of Salford. He has previously written for the M.E.N Group as well as working for several top professional sports clubs. Contact him on [email protected]

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